Only Human: A World Without Saiyajin
by The Rev
Summary: *Complete*A mysterious virus has killed everyone with saiyajin blood on earth, and now the only ones left to defend the planet are it's natives. The humans and Piccolo have been training harder than ever, but when a new foe shows up, it may not be enough.
1. Default Chapter

Chapter One:   
  


Yamucha pushed himself up on one finger for what felt like the millionth time, although he was, in reality, only up to just past six thousand. Still four thousand more to go before he could rest for the afternoon. Sure, for someone of his strength that many pushups, even on one finger, should have been easy. But he was a little out of shape after slacking off for so long, and at five hundred times gravity, any exercise was hard. 

Why was he bothering? Well, there were reasons, some more important than others. He didn't like to fight much anymore, but the idea of being totally weak didn't much appeal to him, either. Seeing the levels Krillin and Tien were pushing themselves to now that the saiyajin were gone had sort of inspired him. 

That's right, the saiyajin are gone. Allow me to back up here, leave Yamucha dripping sweat onto the gravity room floor and tell the story the way it should have been. From the beginning.   
  
  
  


Krillin flew through the air so fast that the mere noise of wind over his body deafened his ears from all other sound. Very fast, but not his top speed. He wanted to get to Goku and ChiChi's house, not blow over it without seeing it. 

Goku was the last. The last warrior of saiyajin blood left alive by that virus. 

How many years has he survived with it now? Krillin wondered. Four, almost five? But if ChiChi say's he's going, then he's going. 

It had been almost five years since the virus had first shown up, though when it first appeared on earth none of them knew. Just a little under half a decade since Goten and Trunks had caught it at almost exactly the same time. 

That was just after the defeat of Buu. The boys were amazingly strong for their age, but they were children still, Trunks nine and Goten eight years of age. They had withered like plants in a desert. Two weeks after Bulma found the virus in their systems, they were gone. 

The thing about it was, this virus killed people in a horrible way. It basically cannibalized them, eating away at their bodies from the inside until finally all that was left was what looked like a mummy. 

And it only affected saiyajin. That was the first thing the lab tests had confirmed. Only those with saiyajin DNA. 

Gohan had contracted the disease shortly after that. He had held on for almost a month, longer than any of them had expected. 

But in the end, it had killed him. ChiChi and Videl both had been on the brink of a nervous breakdown, and nothing would have stopped it if Goku hadn't been there. They still had their problems, and were often crying, but having the hero of all their lives still around was comforting. 

But even then, though he kept it a secret, Goku had already noticed symptoms of the virus on himself. 

About the same time Vegeta got it, Bulma had finally figured out why none of the standard procedures even made a dent in it. 

Apparently, this virus had some kind of shifting quality. Every time the body manufactured the right antibodies to combat it, it simply mutated into a very slightly different form. So no matter how strong a saiyajin was, their immune systems could not beat it. 

And even though Bulma and Dr. Briefs now understood the virus and were working around the clock, a cure was simply impossible. How do you make a vaccine for something that is always changing into something different? 

And Vegeta... 

Krillin shuddered a bit when he thought of Vegeta. 

The saiyajin prince had known what was happening, and known that he could not survive this virus. In a short note that for all it's crudity (he had not yet fully mastered earth's writing systems) had been more heartfelt than anything the prince had said in his whole life, he had said that he simply wasn't willing to put Bulma and the rest of the Z group through taking care of him. Not if there was no hope. 

It was Yajirobi who finally found Vegeta's body, almost a week later. Strangely, it hadn't been picked over by animals, even though it had been in the middle of the woods. 

Vegeta had blasted himself through the chest. In his own words, 

'I'm going to end it before it ends me.' 

The expression on his face had been one almost never seen on a corpse. 

He had looked worried. No one had to ask why, there were dozens of reasons. 

Where would he go when he died? Would he keep his body? Would he still be able to see what was going on down on earth? 

Would Bulma be okay alone? 

It had been almost a year then since the virus first appeared. Goku was showing obvious signs of being sick. He was weakening. Already he had been far weaker than his human friends. 

When Bulma ran a test on him to tell how bad he was, she had almost gone through the roof. The level of contamination in his body told them all what Goku had refused to say: That the virus had been in him for close to a year. 

Bulma said it was amazing he was still alive at all, and reluctantly gave an estimate of one more month before the hero would go. 

Well, she was a little off, I guess, Krillin thought with a ghost of a smile. She forgot to take into account that we're talking about Goku here. 

Four more years. That's how long it had been since that day. Goku had lived for four years, until it was very clear that he was hanging onto life by sheer will. His body had long ago given out; it had been ages since he had been able to stand by himself, let alone walk. 

And Krillin was hurrying over to the Son house now, because he had just gotten a call from ChiChi. Being Goku's best friend, she had called him first. 

She said Goku was going.   
  
  
  


He landed in front of the house and saw that Tien, Piccolo, and Yamucha, living closer, had all beat him there. 

"Is he still...?" Krillin asked hesitantly. 

Piccolo nodded once. That was all he needed. He raced into the house, moving fast but making sure to not make a lot of noise. 

And he saw Goku, lying on the pallet that had been his home for the past two years, since he had lost the ability to walk. The saiyajin hero was gone.  
  
  
  


So that's why they were all training. Not just Yamucha, but Piccolo, Tien, Krillin, Yajirobi, and Choutzu. Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou were as well, though being cyborgs they could really only increase their skill and not their power. 

We're all stronger than we've ever been, Yamucha thought. But what good will it do if another enemy like Majin Buu comes? We'd still all be wiped out. 

His thought was only partly true. They would probably not be just wiped out like nothing, not even by Buu. 

Piccolo was training off by himself somewhere, so none of the others really knew how strong he was. 

Tien had been training like a madman, and was now at least as strong as Goku had been when he first fought android nineteen. Not very strong for a super saiyajin, but unheard of for a human. 

Krillin wasn't quite as strong, but he was the fastest of them all by far. He too was now able to contend with super saiyajin power. 

Yajirobi had been training as well. He could now fly easily, and fire a kamehameha. He wasn't as strong as the others, but he was almost as dangerous. Just after he had learned the kamehameha, he had figured out how to project ki into his sword, making it able to cut literally anything. It was even more powerful than a blast made with the same amount of ki would be. 

Choutzu had never responded as well to training as the others had. It was just the way his ki worked. But he had gotten a little stronger, and he also had been working on his concentration, so that he could use psychic attacks more effectively. 

They all thought that Videl had been training, but her power level was still only in the hundreds. She could definitely kill a whole mob of normal humans, but still didn't hold a candle to the Z fighters. 

At least, Yamucha assumed. He really didn't know, since Videl lived with ChiChi now, and she almost never talked to any of them, he wasn't sure how strong she was. He didn't think the others did either. 

That leaves me, Yamucha thought with a slight grin. 

He pushed himself off the floor for the now eight thousandth time, wondering. He wasn't as strong as Tenshinhan, or as fast as Krillin, but he wasn't a slouch either. He guessed that if Frieza were to show up now, he would have no trouble turning the planet pirate into dust. 

He was getting older, though it didn't really show much. His hair was a little thinner now, and perfectly straight, pulled back in a ponytail behind his head. There were a few very faint lines around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, but so faint that you wouldn't notice them unless you were inches away and really looking for them. He was dressed in one of his old orange Kame gis, a little worn now but still durable. 

Not too bad for someone who just turned fifty three. Not bad at all. In fact, he was willing to wager that he looked about thirty, give or take a few years. All that training has paid off in at least one way. 

And hopefully in others. Because even though they all knew that it could happen, none of them expected that a threat to their lives was already drawing close to arriving.   
  
  
  
  
  


Krillin slowly pushed his arms out in an exaggerated push, moving like liquid, every muscle in his body relaxed. He was practicing a kata that was very similar to most sets in a martial art known as Tai Chi Chuan, in which the emphasis was on peace, rather than strength. The focus of this particular set's slow movement was self control. Many techniques that were very easy to do quickly were unbelievably hard when done at such a slow speed. 

Pulling his arms back in, he rotated his torso so that he was facing across the room, catching a glimpse of Tenshinhan as he did. 

Tien was performing the exact same kata as Krillin, but many times over and at a furious pace. This wasn't out of discourtesy; Tien would have left the room without complaint had Krillin asked. But the former monk liked to do the slow sets amidst things that were moving faster. It made them more difficult, therefore, more effective. 

The walls of the room were stained a dark red that was really closer to brown, and there were various ancient woven tapestries and hangings on the wall depicting mythical monsters, religious gods, and other things. Incense burned in the urns at one end of the room, and the only light came from two torches at the other. 

Though none of the Z warriors but him would have known the place, it held a special memory for Krillin. He had first studied martial arts here, in a place called the Orijin Temple. 

The monks here had taken him back in easily and with a very friendly welcome, even though he was not a monk anymore and his wife had come with him. They understood his situation, and wouldn't have dreamed of turning him out, or any that came with him. 

The fact that he helped teach martial arts to a few of the best students helped matters greatly. 

He and Tenshinhan were held somewhat in awe here. The students that studied in this place were the best in the world, and yet they weren't 'gifted', as so few humans tended to be anymore. Krillin, Tien, Yamucha, Choutzu, Yajirobi, and Videl were the only 'gifted' humans still alive. 

Understand that by 'gifted' I don't mean that they could control their ki. Any one of the Orijin students could do that, though very little. It was how well they did it and how strong they could get that made them so. None of the monastery's students could hope of ever being so strong. 

But that didn't stop them from trying, or from seeking out the two reputed masters, going into the deep lower halls of the huge building and asked to be trained. 

Krillin smiled. Not that all of the students wanted to be trained once they had seen some of the two warrior's exercises for themselves. Most of the prospective students were right back up on the main floor of the monastery as soon as they saw the four and a half foot, thin man lift a five hundred pound weight with finger and thumb. 

There were a few dedicated souls, however, who were willing to go the distance. Those few went through some of the hardest training of their lives, but it always paid off. 

And it got harder once Krillin was done with them and Tenshinhan started giving them strength training. 

But right now they were in the training room alone. Outside, the moon was setting, and it was drawing close to dawn. The monastery was just waking, a few servants and monks in training rising to do chores. But for the most part, all was quiet. 

Krillin finished his kata and stood straight. "Tien, I think it's almost dawn." he said. 

The tri-clops stopped his set in mid move. "Already?" 

Krillin nodded. "We were all supposed to get together today at capsule corp. to train, weren't we?" 

Tien nodded. "We were. But we don't have to be there for another four hours." 

"I've got something in mind." Krillin said. "We should stop at Korin's." 

Tien shrugged. "Whatever you want to do. It doesn't make much of a difference to me." 

"Then let's go." Krillin said. 

"Now?" 

"Yup." 

The tri-clops sighed. "Okay, sure. Just let me go wake Choutzu." 

Five minutes later, Tien, Choutzu, Krillin, and Juuhachi-gou were in the air headed for the tower, a few of the order's monks on the ground, watching them go.   
  
  
  


"Huuuuuraaaaaaa!!!!" the cry ripped through the frozen waste, the only noise besides a howling wind and cracking ice. 

The wind was natural, it would be happening anyway. The ice cracking was not natural at all. It came from a large, green warrior who was training at his physical threshold. 

"No..." Piccolo grunted in frustration, looking disdainfully at the place where an enormous mountain had been just a second ago. "I can do more. I have to become stronger..." 

Piccolo's ki began to rise again, pushing snow, ice, and anything else that was under several hundred pounds away through the air. He roared with power as the waves of ki began to radiate more harshly, destroying most of the surrounding icecap, digging down until earth that hadn't seen sunlight in untold millennia was bare to the wind. 

He found it easy to think in the midst of the swirling hurricane of his own power, much easier than he could in a normal state, and even easier than during meditation sometimes. It was almost peaceful, in all it's chaos, but more than that, it was his entirely. Surrounded by nothing but the substance of himself, he was shielded from any outside distractions. 

The others are training even harder than I am, he thought with not a little amusement. They never trained this hard, not even when we were sure that Goku wasn't going to be back. None of them did. So why now? 

Truth be told, he thought he knew. Even with Goku gone, they had always had Gohan, and Vegeta, and himself. They still had him, but something about the way the strongest warriors had just died had unnerved them, made them aware that if something else showed up to threaten their now peaceful lives, they would have to be ready. Goku wasn't around to save them anymore. 

And the Dragonballs couldn't bring the saiyajin back. The virus undoubtedly fell under natural causes, although it was pretty obvious to all of them that any virus like that would have to have been genetically engineered. 

The Dragonballs hadn't been able to cure it either. When Gohan came down with it, the first thing they had done was collect the artifacts and ask Shenlon if he could destroy the virus, or at least cure it or send it away. The dragon had said no on both counts, but hadn't said why. 

So their hopes were shot on that count. 

But the humans weren't doing bad, even Piccolo freely admitted. In fact, they were doing exquisitely well. 

But even so.... 

Even so, Piccolo still felt it was his duty to protect this planet. Twenty years ago, he would have simply stolen a spaceship from capsule corp. and vacated this little mudball, but now part of him (probably Kami) insisted that it was his planet now as well as theirs, and he was just as responsible for it. 

So he stayed.   
  
  
  


Videl swung her sword, which was very old, used, and worn, the handle wrapped in cloth tightly, but still in good shape. It was a gift from the man whose swipe she had just blocked; Yajirobi. 

Meeting the samurai/martial artist/monk had been a complete accident, really. She had simply been up at Korin's tower one day (which was where they were now), hoping to get some senzu beans to help with her training, and he had dropped the suggestion that a sword might make a huge difference in a fight, making up for her lower power level considerably. 

"Good. You're getting better." Yajirobi remarked as he pulled his wooden boken (wooden katana) away and regarded her critically. "But you still stick sometimes on the blocks. If I was really fighting, you could be dead." 

She nodded, listening and knowing it would be pointless and probably unintelligent to disregard the tip that was disguised as criticism. Yajirobi, though he tended to try to keep out of the major fight both because he wasn't as strong as the others and because he considered himself the backup to wish people back with the Dragonballs, was a hard teacher, but a good one all the same. He used a wooden sword both to slow himself down and to avoid injuring his student. 

"Always remember to counterattack immediately." Yajirobi instructed. "That way no one can get a surprise in on you." 

She nodded again, and renewed her assault on the samurai's almost impenetrable guard. 

She didn't have to worry about hitting him, at least not lethally. He was just too good a swordsman. He promised her that when she got fast enough to even remotely endanger his life that he would make her use a boken as well. But aside from having years more training and being very good at what he did, Yajirobi also wore armor under his robe. He didn't trust his instincts that much at least. 

She tried to get a cut in across his stomach, but he blocked it easily enough. He didn't let his guard down, though. She wasn't moving at full speed, though neither was he. 

She spun, remembering to pull away right after the block, and lashed out at his face, and the look of surprise stamped across his features as he barely dodged back was quite satisfying. She was getting faster. 

Again she remembered her training (Yajirobi had given her quite a few more pointers besides to attack directly after a block), and continued the rotation that she had begun with the cut, bringing herself around and turning it into another attack, this time for Yajirobi's legs. 

He jumped over it, realizing that she was using the tips he gave her, and smiled. "Yup, you're definitely getting better, kid." 

She stopped in mid swipe in front of him, returning the smile with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. Turning the blade ninety degrees, she made a swift upward cut that. If he wasn't wearing armor, would have disemboweled the samurai. Another look of shock crossed his face as he thrust the boken down and blocked the oncoming cut. 

Videl had swung her weapon with such ferocity that it embedded itself almost an inch into the wood of the boken, causing Yajirobi to flinch and pull the weapon away. 

"One of these days you're gonna break this thing, kid." he said, pulling the sword out of the wood and handing it back to Videl. "Then I'll end up wearing my guts for garters if you aren't able to pull your attacks." 

She smirked. "If you weren't so slow that wouldn't be a problem." 

That was the way they trained. They fought and insulted each other, neither bothered a bit by it. 

"Are you two going to stay out there all day!?" Korin yelled. "Or am I going to eat Mr. Popo's dinner by myself?"

Yamucha was slightly relieved to have his workout in the gravity room interrupted when Bulma came in to ask him for help fixing a capsule car. He honestly didn't know why she bothered to fix things; it wasn't as if she didn't have hundreds more. But he didn't mind, because he needed an excuse to quit this early morning torture session, and working on a car was as good a reason as any.

She looked almost guilty. "If you don't want to, it's okay. I can probably take care of it myself."

He shook his head with a smile. "No, that's fine. I needed a reason to quit anyway."

He pulled a towel off of it's hook on the wall and wiped his face and head free of sweat, still breathing a little hard after hours of working out in so much gravity, all before dawn. It never crossed his mind to wonder why Bulma was up at this ungodly hour. Ever since the virus had hit, and even more so since Vegeta had died, she had been living more and more on her own hours, not relating to anyone outside of capsule corp. at all. It wasn't an odd sight to see Bulma working madly at a lab counter, mixing chemicals or fixing some machine at three o'clock in the morning.

Yamucha threw the towel over his shoulders and followed her out of the gravity chamber and into the residential section of capsule corp., where he now lived. It was a strange arrangement. He had begun paying her a reasonable rent, though she had tried more than once to get him to stop paying and just stay for free. The reason he had moved in was because he was worried about her, losing her whole family so quickly. Strangely, she had bared up almost to a point where it made him worry more. He saw no tears, except for the occasional one that slipped out at any random moment.

She seemed rather melancholy this morning.

Of course, he knew the other z fighters watched him, wondering at his motives, though they all knew he would never do anything to Bulma against her will. He had always cared for her, more now than ever since her personality had leveled off from that of a snobby teenager to a smart, much more pleasant adult. 

The garage was on the other side of the building, so it took them a few minutes to get there. When they finally did, Yamucha wasn't surprised to see one of the huge car/planes that capsule corp. mass produced on a set of lifts. Bulma often needed help with these, because the parts were all large and heavy, and the ones she fixed often had broken or badly jammed parts that had to be forced off.

He walked underneath the car and looked up into the engine compartment. "So what's wrong with this one?"

"Not much, actually." She replied, pointing up at various parts. "General maintenance, oil changed and stuff. There's a cracked head, and I'm pretty sure the fan on the left engine is rusted out. That's what I really need your help with."

He nodded, and floated into the air to look at the engine. Almost right away he noticed a problem, besides the heavily rusted fan. Just behind the fan, there were two hoses that let air through, and one was cracked wide open. He called down.

"Hey, this looks a little more extensive than you thought."

"I didn't get to look at it all that closely." She said, sounding worried. "What's wrong?"

As well as he knew the parts by sight, Yamucha had always been very bad with names. He hesitated for only a second before she said, "Bring me up and let me take a look."

He floated down, and she wrapped her arms around his neck while he held her by the waist. Lifting back up, he was quite suddenly aware how close she was pressed to him, and had to mentally tell himself to get real, this was Bulma, that was ancient history.

"Look, back there." He directed her with his eyes. "The hose is cracked."

She cursed under her breath. "I don't know if I have one of those here. Maybe in the warehouse…"

She turned, and they were looking eye to eye. Electricity seemed to flick back and forth in their gaze, and Bulma's mouth tilted slightly in a smile. Did her arms tighten a bit and pull him closer, or was it just his imagination?

Quite suddenly, the peace was shattered as a huge wave of force slammed through the air, the ground almost moving, and they were both thrown to the ground, Yamucha's small flight aura not even helping. Luckily he landed on the bottom, and the only thing that fell on them was a huge tarp, though a few chunks of the ceiling actually came loose and fell perilously close. 

Another wave hit, and Yamucha fought his way out from under the tarp, Bulma still held in his arms. He dashed out of the garage and into the steel re-enforced building, where he thought the ceiling would most likely not be coming down around them. He was right, and as soon as they were in the hall he set her down.

"Stay here." He said shortly, and was gone quickly, outside already.

In the south, he could see ki blasts going off in the middle of a city.

He flew straight towards them.

In a bunker, far below ground, miles in fact, a computer was ticking away tirelessly. As it had been for decades.

It had been built years ago by Dr. Gero, his master computer to which all his others were connected and to which all data was sent to be stored as a backup. It was also working on several projects that the doctor had been either to busy to finish, or had had little hope for. Recently, some of those had come to fruition.

The computer Gero had created was huge, and very advanced, much better than any used anywhere else in the world. It had so much memory and was so fast and efficient that Gero had even been able to program the computer to infer, and to use logic. So, though it could not feel emotion, this masterpiece of science had the ability to learn, and was almost able to be considered artificial intelligence. Many would say that it was.

One of Gero's projects had been a specific toxin or virus, one targeted to a specific flaw he had found in Goku's DNA. Although the doctor hadn't known it then, he had set his computer in motion to one day set loose a virus that would kill anyone with saiyajin DNA. It had been completed years ago, released only days before Goten and Trunks had fallen ill.

But Gero hadn't done one thing. He hadn't programmed the machine to put a halt to other plans if one succeeded. So even though Goku was dead, the computer worked on.

Taking up one whole side of the room was another of the doctor's failed projects. It had been his best yet, but the risk factor was simply to high for him to waste his time. These machines had only a one in one hundred chance of ever working.

Gero may have been a super genius, but he had been incredibly short sighted when he had estimated what his super computer would be capable of.

On the far side of the room, there were two stasis pods, the kind used for androids seventeen and eighteen. Engraved on one was the number 21. The other was open, and the number not visible.

Behind the tube was a hole bored into the wall, tunneled through solid granite. It led back and upward.

A small bit of sunlight leaked through from the top, over ten miles up. The dull sounds of explosions also came down, vibrating the entire room slightly with each thud.

Another of Dr. Gero's creations was loose in the world.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two:

Krillin, Tenshinhan, Choutzu and Juuhachi-gou were on their way to Korin's tower when the same explosion that threw Yamucha and Bulma into such disarray sent shockwaves of power through the air, not knocking them down but altering their positions considerably, like an earthquake in the air. Krillin was instantly thankful for the fact that they had left Marron at the monastery. She didn't know how to fly that well, and she might have fallen. 

The rumble of sound lasted longer than would have been expected, indicating that this had been a city leveling sized blast. 

They all looked at each other, eyes wide in shock. That had been _close_, close enough to feel. But there were only cities nearby… no place was barren enough to be used as a training area, not for really big blasts.

That could only mean one thing.

The day they had been training for was here.

"That came from the direction of Capsule Corp." Tien said, his face probably the most calm of the entire group. "But I can sense Yamucha; he's moving."

"But…" Krillin looked confused. "I don't sense any other power levels besides his. So what created that explosion?"

The answer, of course, was more than obvious. No power level, huge explosion, and in a fairly populated area, which meant it was probably geared to kill a lot of people. Tien just glanced at Juuhachi-gou, then back in the direction the blast had come from.

It didn't take the other three long to catch on.

"Androids!?" Krillin yelled out in surprise. 

Choutzu looked at the tri-clops, eyes wide. "But… Gero didn't make any more of them! Remember, Cell was the last!"

Tien shook his head. "We don't know that for sure."

"Well, we can't know for sure," Juuhachi-gou said coolly, "Until we go look for ourselves, right?" 

"Right." Tien nodded. "Let's go."

Their aura's blazed and they took off toward the place where Yamucha was just arriving.

+ 

From the sky, the devastation was a little more manageable. It was almost like a picture, looking at the ruined city, it's streets now impassible rubble and it's buildings chunks of concrete. It still struck something in him, but nothing compared to how it seemed once he was down in it.

The crumbled sidewalk didn't make walking easy, and he soon found that it was much easier and expended less energy to just float at a fairly rapid pace. It also kept him from viewing the random shots of carnage, of which there were many. Walking, it was almost impossible to not stop and look. Flying, he just went by and saw only a blur.

But not an inkling of who or what had done this. He had half expected to see whoever or whatever was responsible to be floating over the city, waiting for a challenge, but that had turned out to be wrong. There was no one, and he could detect no energy signatures, except for Tien, Krillin, and Choutzu, who were headed towards him. They weren't moving at full speed, which was just as well. From the looks of things, there was nothing to worry about. Everyone was dead and whoever was responsible had apparently vacated the scene.

But that didn't feel quite right. His senses, at least the ones he was most used to relying on, told him nothing. He couldn't see of hear anyone, and he could sense no ki. But something else, the sixth sense all real warriors have, told him otherwise. He could _feel _something here, but not in any way he could put a finger on. He just knew it, so he kept his guard up.

He had flown more than halfway across the city now; soon he would have to double back. But… he didn't think he was going to find anything that way. Whatever he was looking for was obviously either not there or hidden. To find it, he was going to have to do some blasting of his own. But he didn't want to do that. Blasting the rubble around, flinging the bodies of the dead along with the rock, just seemed more horrible than the original crime itself. Incredibly disrespectful. 

He stopped, and touched down on a large piece of pavement that was still mostly intact. He needed to plan some way of covering the city, but with one person it didn't matter how great of a plan you came up with. If something wanted to slip by you and had all this area to hide in, there was very little chance of catching it.

He sighed. Really, there was nothing he could do but circle the city and hope to get lucky until the others got here. Maybe Piccolo would realize what had happened and show up. The namek was a great strategist, and any plan he came up with was bound to have a better chance of success, at least in Yamucha's mind.

The human warrior floated back up into the air, and was about to try his plan of circling the city when something slammed into his back, sending his off guard body flying through the air and into a chunk of building that was still together for the most part. He slammed right through the concrete, and before he had a chance to do more than blink the rest of the building collapsed on top of him.

+

The crap falling on him didn't really hurt too much; after so many years of training with people like Goku, it would take more than a few tons of rock to do him in! But it was a nuisance, and it cut off his view of the area that had just become a battle zone. To hell with the dead people, he was fighting in their stead now, so their souls would have to understand.

Yamucha summoned his ki, power that still surprised him with the growth it had gained during the last few months of training, and pushed it outward, blasting the rock off of him, surrounding him in a hurricane of his own ki for a split second.

He let it drop right away, not wanting to waste even the smallest bit of energy in what could possibly be a hard battle. Bits and pieces of rock fell to the ground all around him as he searched for his opponent. Front, no good. Left, right, no good.

Back…

"Are you looking for me, human scum?" 

Yamucha whirled around, uneasy that he could detect no energy signature at all. 

Floating a few feet above the rubble was a short, brown skinned man. Or maybe boy. He was about four and a half feet tall, with an extremely muscular yet skinny body, and dreadlocks that reached the small of his back, black, blue, and green. He wore baggy black pants and no shirt. On his chest was a badge that looked like it was part of his skin. It bore two things; the Red Ribbon army's logo, and the number 22.

"You… you're the one who destroyed this city and killed all these people!" Yamucha yelled, angry but also dragging this moment out for a few more seconds, gauging his opponent as well as he could without detecting any power level. The Red Ribbon badge along with what he sensed told him one thing: an android.

"Yes." The android said. "I am android twenty two." His voice was high, almost to the point of being reedy. 

"Android 22, huh?" Yamucha smirked. "So, I take it you were made by Dr. Gero to kill Goku, right?"

"That is correct." 22 replied. "My database indicated that you are the human known as Yamucha."

"Yeah, I'm Yamucha." The human said. "And I think I've got some news for you; Goku's dead already, and has been for a while now."

He expected… well, he didn't know exactly what he expected. But it sure wasn't what he got. The android only smiled back at him.

"My sensors indicated this the moment I awoke from stasis. Fortunately, the great Gero-sama left instructions in case this were true."

"Which are?"

The android's smile widened, looking sinister. "To kill everything I see."

Without giving the remark any time to sink in, he flew at Yamucha and threw a punch at the human's face, which was blocked, but only just. He followed with a spinning kick that was aimed for the back of the human's head, but Yamucha was fast, and was able to drop down just in time, though a look of shock was pasted across his features as he did so.

Not wasting any time on idle watching, Yamucha braced himself against the ground with his hand and threw his legs up, catching the android in the stomach and sending it up and away from him. He launched after it, catching it before the momentum of his kick was lost, and planted an elbow in 22's spine, sending him plummeting back to the ground, where he struck hard, throwing up a cloud of dust from the impact.

There was no way Yamucha was going to believe that he could win so easily, so he kept his guard up and was ready when the android came barreling out of the smoke at him. 22's face was set in a snarl, and his fist was out, headed right for the human's face. Yamucha moved gracefully to the side, sliding about ten feet away as the android screeched to a halt right where he had been, it's fist still extended.

"Wolf Fang Fist!" Yamucha yelled out, dashing forward with the intent to end this as quickly as he could.

The Wolf Fang Fist technique was similar to the Kaio-ken, in the fact that it gave a phenomenal boost to speed, though it didn't increase strength as much. Yamucha slammed four punched into the android's face and three into it's gut, the last of which repayed him with a crunching sound, and then he flipped to the front, bringing his foot around and slamming it into 22's head, sending it flying back down to the ground with a crash and another cloud of dust.

+

This time there was a good thirty second wait before the android shot back out of the smoke, this time not coming at him but moving up on level with him, about twenty feet away. 22 looked mad, but he didn't really look all that worried. He smoother his dreadlocks out so that the all fell over his shoulders and down his back, then regarded Yamucha coolly.

"Your power is higher than my data indicated it would be. Fortunately, my own power is well up to the challenge." The android's grimace turned slightly, making it a smirk. It held one hand out toward the human warrior like a claw, and what Yamucha saw sent chills down his spine.

The red circle that looked like a laser lens in the middle of the android's palm wasn't particularly sinister looking, but Yamucha's memory of Dr. Gero's hand plowing through his stomach while one of those things sucked the ki out of his body was all too vivid.

He pushed the thought out of his mind, and pushed his ki up.

+

In the space of a fraction of a second, it looked as if some low voltage electric current had passed through the row of four z warriors. Krillin, then Juuhachi-gou, then Tien, then Choutzu all jerked back, halting in the air and eyes widening in surprise. 

"Yamucha's ki just spiked." Tien said. "He's fighting something."

"Well, come on!" Krillin yelled. "Full speed ahead, guys!!"

They flashed out of existence, it seemed, moving faster than the speed of sound and leaving several sonic booms in their trail as they sped off toward the city. 

+

Videl, Korin, and Yajirobi all looked up from their meal at once, a forkful of food dropping from the samurai's hand back to his plate as he stood up quickly, almost knocking the table over. Videl was up as well, and Korin hopped up off the chair and onto the table so that he was more on level with the other two.

"Hey, is that Yamucha?" Videl asked, sounding worried. The human had powered up far beyond what was normal for training, using amounts of ki that could have blown the gravity room to pieces. That could only mean a fight.

"Yeah, it's him alright." Yajirobi said grimly. "Come on, Videl. The others are headed straight for him. They might need some help."

The girl nodded, her face setting into lines of determination. This would be her first real battle, aside from the minute confrontation with Majin Buu that had, though it took a great deal of guts, not really been a fight so much as her own swift death.

She picked up the sword she had been using earlier for practice and tied the sash of the scabbard around her waist tightly, securing it in place so it wouldn't come loose when flying at high speed. Yajirobi picked up his katana off the pillow it had been resting on on the floor and did likewise.

"Let's go."

They vaulted the railing of the tower and blasted off through the air.

Korin stared after them for a second, his normal look of sarcastic amusement replaced now by concern. He hopped down from the table and began to pace worriedly back and forth.

+

A huge explosion rocked the northern mountain range, and a gigantic block of ice shattered to shards in it's wake, revealing a slightly tired looking Piccolo, who drew the hand he had just delivered the blast with back and tried to catch his breath. He had been working hard all day, and a good portion of this mountain was gone. 

Of course, he could have blown the whole thing to fragments if he wanted to, but he was concentrating his ki blasts more, making them more intense but take up a smaller space. This made them more useful when fighting an enemy who was his own size or smaller. If more ki was packed into a smaller space, it was all the more potent. And a blast the size of a house would waste ki simply because not all of it even hit the target.

Suddenly his thoughts were snapped away from ki blast technique to what he had been keeping an eye out for all these past months of training; the ki signatures of several of the other z warriors powering up simultaneously. Yamucha near Capsule Corp., powered up to fighting levels. And the others, all flying fast towards him.

So, there was finally going to be a battle. 

In a way, that made him excited, because he might finally get a chance to test how strong he had gotten and if it would be enough to defend the earth. But in another, more insistent way, it made him very nervous. What would happen if he and the others were not strong enough? What would happen to the earth if another Cell or Buu showed up?

Well, thinking about it wasn't going to help anyone, that was for damn sure.

Piccolo roared and blasted off in a super-nova of his own power, flying with astonishing speed toward the area of Capsule Corp., half the planet away. 

+

Yamucha didn't know how the android got so fast all of a sudden. It's speed before had been pretty good, but not really anything for him to worry about.

But now it suddenly covered the distance between them in a flash and buried his fist in Yamucha's stomach.

The human warrior screamed, the pain roaring up his nerves, a thin spray of blood flying from his mouth as he yelled. 22 smiled and pushed his fist through even harder, and something, most likely Yamucha's ribs, cracked with a muffled sound that nonetheless filled his mind.

Android 22 drew his fist back, still smiling, and drew his arm up over Yamucha's head, cocking it so that the elbow jutted out. Then he brought it down, smashing it directly between the human's shoulder blades, sending him on a straight collision into the ground, kicking up a huge cloud of smoke and dust and almost making him black out from the impact. 

Only a fraction of a second later, for to short a time for Yamucha to recover from the jolt of hitting the earth, the android shot down and planted it's knee in the small of the human's back.

There was a sickening crunch, and pain flared in Yamucha's waist and abdomen, making him scream, the veins standing out on his arms and neck. But that wasn't the worst. Pain, he could deal with.

Everything below his waist had just gone completely numb. As if his legs weren't even there.

His cries kept coming. He tried to stifle them, but it was useless. The pain clouded over everything, refusing to let his brain give anything but it attention. His vision blanked in and out.

Android 22 removed it's knee from his back with a laugh. Yamucha gritted his teeth together, biting the insides of his mouth hard enough to draw blood. Anything to keep the screams at bay and let him _think._

What was the use? He was dead, and he knew it.

The android kicked him in the ribs, not very hard but enough to hurt his already damaged body. It flipped him over onto his back, and he found himself staring up into the blue sky, where clouds of dust still floated.

Then 22 was standing over him, one hand extended, blocking out his vision.

The red orb in the middle of his palm seemed to flex and open, but before Yamucha could really tell it was clamped over his mouth.

__

No!! I won't go out like this!! His mind screamed, as the draining sensation filled him, ki being pulled from every molecule in his body._ While I still have a little energy left, I have to at least try!_

He dragged one arm up, somehow moving it. He didn't know how, since the drain of ki was already making him lightheaded and numb. He raised his arm, opened his hand, and pointed his open palm at the android's face.

"Wha…" 22 looked at the hand, surprised, before a blast tore out of it and struck him hard in the face, throwing him backward and breaking the hold he had on Yamucha.

22 landed on his back, digging a trench in the dirt for about ten feet before he came to a stop. He was still for a second.

Yamucha grit his teeth and tried to look past the pain. He was weak now, a good bit of energy drained by the android and by his last blast. He clawed into the ground with his fingers, and pulled, turning himself over. When he landed on his front he cried out briefly.

Now… he reached the same hand forward, somehow only knowing that he had to move, had to get away. Digging into the ground, he pulled his body forward, useless legs dragging behind him like wood. Pain roared through his body like an express train, but he kept pulling.

Android 22 stood up, dusting his pants off. Then he looked at the human with disgust. It actually thought it would get away!

It had barely finished the thought before a green and white blur slammed into it, a fist hitting him in the face with the force to level mountains, throwing him backward into a pile of rubble.

Piccolo's feet touched the ground, and he crouched down into the old familiar stance, knees bent, two fingers extended against his forehead.

He charged the attack as fast as he could, knowing he would only get one chance to hit before the android came after him.

It blasted back out of the rubble, sending chunks of concrete flying everywhere, and landed exactly where Piccolo wanted it to; directly in front of him, about twenty feet away.

It got one look of surprise in as it saw the massive amount of ki charging at the tip of Piccolo's fingers.

"Special Beam Cannon!!" 

The spiral blast moved fast, shooting out of Piccolo's hand and hitting the android square in the chest, and plowing through, leaving a dinner plate sized hole in it's wake.

The android was thrown backward, and landed on it's back in the trench it had made earlier, sparks flyng from the ruined machinery sticking out of it's chest.

+

Krillin, Tien, Choutzu, and Juuhachi-gou landed just as Piccolo stood over the fallen android.

"Any last words?" the namek growled at it, ignoring the humans completely for the moment and extending his hand over the robot, palm facing down.

"Enjoy this victory while you can!" the robot screamed at him with surprising fury, oil spewing from it's mouth and the open hole, staining the ground around it. "Soon Android Twenty One will come and kill you all!!"

"Goodbye."

Piccolo let fly with a huge wave of ki, vaporizing the thing's head and ripping the rest of the body to fragments.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three:

Yamucha's eyes sprang open, the pain quickly melting away. He supposed he had been out, knew it. But he still could notice the faint aftertaste that was mostly pleasant but slightly bitter at the same time. Someone had crushed a senzu bean and let the powder dissolve in his mouth until it was digested.

He lay on his back for a minute, savoring the absence of pain. He had been in so much of it until a second ago, and now it was just gone. It took his breath away, and a few seconds were required for him to adapt to get used to it. Above him, he could see a domed roof, not all that big from the curve, made of clean white marble tiles. Having been here many times, he had no trouble guessing where he was.

He sat up slowly, his head still a bit light, and saw that he was right. Propped up on one knee, he could see Korin near the railing of the platform, talking loudly and quickly with Piccolo, sounding very worried. Or maybe just agitated. With Korin, sometimes it was hard to tell, the cat never showing much emotion other than quiet amusement.

Closer to him, Tienshinhan was sitting with his back rested against the cool stone of the central pillar that went up to the roof, all three eyes closed, perhaps meditating, perhaps just shutting things out. 

Krillin was kneeling next to him, pale green powdered senzu still dusting his palm, which was open, his arm draped across his knee as he stared intently into Yamucha's face. His eyes were grave with concern.

"How you doing?" he asked.

"Fine." Yamucha grinned slightly, though he surely didn't feel like smiling. "Now that you gave me that senzu. My head still feels like an elephants stepping on it, though." he reached one hand up, rubbing his temple absently.

"I'm not surprised." The former monk replied, answering Yamucha's grin with his own, though the bandit's had disappeared. "You took quite a beating."

"Don't remind me." Yamucha frowned. "Where are the others?"

Krillin sighed. "I sent Juu-chan back to the temple to stay with Marron." He said. Juuhachi-gou had protested at first, not wanting to leave the others with one less fighter, but in the end she had gone because if she hadn't Krillin would have, and she knew that if worst came to worst, it would set her mind much more at ease to be there herself. "Yajirobi went up to the lookout to explain all this to Dende, and Videl's down on earth trying to do something with the media. We figured she would be the best for the job, being Mr. Satan's daughter and all."

"All that…?" Yamucha raised an eyebrow. "How long have I been out for?"

"Just over an hour, I think. It's been kind of hectic."

Neither said anything about what they were really thinking. Androids. That word circled through both their minds like a mantra, or a snatch of song that couldn't be forgotten. Androids. That meant Dr. Gero. Was Gero alive? They had seen his head rolling across the floor, then crushed under Juunana-gou's foot. They had seen his _brains_ on the floor, for Kami's sake. He couldn't be alive.

But then how were these androids made? Android 22, the machine had called himself. And he had mentioned Android 21. Gero had called himself twenty. The continuity fit, but that didn't have to mean they were built by Gero. That could mean someone who knew…

But no one knew. There was no possible way that anyone could have known.

Then how? They had destroyed the lab, and the bunker beneath it. If they had missed one thing, they could have missed dozens. Gero's computer had finished Cell on it's own. Could it have made new androids? But where would it's directives have come from? As far as they knew, no computer could program itself. Unless it had artificial intelligence. But AI had proven to be dangerous, case in point was the way Gero had died. You couldn't trust something to do what it didn't want to.

And in the end, it didn't really matter anyway. What mattered was how to kill the bastards.

Yamucha tuned his own thoughts down and stood up, the lightheadedness he had experienced at first now dissolved into a low red glare behind his eyes, throbbing. But he could still function, so he guessed he could deal with it. Right now he wanted to see what Piccolo and Korin were discussing so heatedly.

He took a few steps closer, neither of the two noticing him at all, it seemed. 

"It doesn't matter _how_ they were created." Piccolo said, his arms crossed over his chest, face set into stern lines. "I could care less about how they were created. I only care about how they can be killed. This android said number 21 will come kill us all, and that means there's at least one more of these things."

Korin only looked at Piccolo, shaking his head. "I expected a little more thought from you, ya know." He said wryly. "If you find out how the android was made, you may be able to find the source. If you find the source, you can shut it down."

Yamucha raised a hand, cutting into the conversation, and the other two turned to look at him. "Piccolo, I'd say you pretty well annihilated that android easily. What's your worry?"

The namek grunted. "I caught it by surprise. If I had to fight head to head, that thing might have given me a challenge." He paused, looking as thoughtful as he could with the same grave expression etched into his face. "Besides, from the way that thing sounded, the next one will be stronger."

"Well, yeah." Yamucha shrugged. "but still, how much stronger could it possibly be? I mean, the last one wasn't really much stronger than Juuhachi-gou, even when he was powered up. He caught me off guard, and he _was _stronger than me, by a little, but I don't think any more androids will pose much of a threat to us."

Piccolo just stared at him. "and what if the next one vaporizes a few cities, or a few really _big _cities, like Satan City, instead of just one small one, before we get to it? What if one of us gets there first, without the others, and get killed trying to fight it?" he snorted. "I think you're a little overconfident, Yamucha."

The human said nothing, but his face fell. His problem was that he was always either too confident or not confident enough. For some reason, any middle ground was very hard to reach. Yamucha sighed, reached his hands behind his head, tightening his ponytail nervously, then dropped to his sides again. 

"Well," he said finally, "What are we supposed to do then? You blew the android to pieces, as I recall, so it's not like we can get any data from it's computer chips. There's no way to find out where it came from."

Korin spoke up.

"Wrong. We can at least try."

The other two snapped their gaze to him, and so did Krillin. No one had noticed that he had come up behind Yamucha and was listening, but not talking.

"Find where Dr. Gero's old lab used to be, and look under the ground. Maybe further below the bunker Cell was in." he paused, running a hand over his chin. "I have a feeling you'll find something." 

Yajirobi had finished giving a brief version of the latest events to Dende, making sure not to draw things out or make any assumptions on what might have happened that he didn't yet know about. Straight and to the point.

Of course, Dende was Kami. He watched over the entire earth, so he probably knew more than any of them did.

The namek who had been a young boy was now full grown, nearly as tall as Piccolo, though his face was much less stern and forbidding. He was dressed in the normal white robes of Kami, with a blue cape draped over his shoulders and a staff in his hand. He looked worried.

"I saw everything." He said when Yajirobi was done speaking. "I guess Dr. Gero isn't done with the earth or it's people yet, even in death."

The samurai looked at the guardian quizzically. "So, Gero is dead, then?"

Dende nodded, looking at the floor. "The first thing I did was to contact Kaio-sama telepathically, and ask him to check. It's confirmed by Enma-sama, Dr. Gero is in hell."

"Then where did the android come from?" 

The guardian shrugged. "I guess that's one of the things we have to find out."

All of the conversation going on in the tower didn't concern Tien in the slightest. For all practical purposes, he wasn't even there. Thinking ahead, he had had the same idea as Korin aboiut going to Gero's old lab. But there was no way to know if these androids could sense energy or not, and his own power was just to big to hide totally.

So, he was looking through the eyes of someone else. Someone who was capable of moving in complete stealth.

Choutzu moved quickly from behind one boulder to another, careful that nothing was around to see him move. This was the place alright; broken bits of machinery still littered the ground.

He had been capable of masking his energy signal completely for as long as he could remember. It was really more of a psychic talent, blocking your specific ki signature from someone else's mind. It took a lot of skill to block it from _everyone_, though. 

He could feel Tienshinhan's presence in the back of his mind, an old friend that didn't feel like an intrusion in his brain as someone else would have. Tenshin was really just along for the ride, to see what could be seen. He would have come himself, but for the reasons he had already explained.

The former emperor darted again across a barren space, concealing himself well. He was almost to what was left of the hatch into the lower bunker. There really wasn't much of the place left after what Krillin and Trunks had done to it, but he had to at least go see.

The heavy metal door that had once covered the hatch had been blown away, and now lay a few yards away, twisted and bent by the force of ki. Nearby was the hatch, now merely a rough tunnel into the ground, the twisted remains of a ladder still partially attached to the side. he Dashed to the hole, then slowly floated down into the dark.

Of course it was pitch black in there, and the only way he could tell that he was at the bottom was the slight change in the air. It just suddenly felt more open, the air moving instead of being closed up. But it smelled stale, as if no one had been here or moved anything for years.

Well, he couldn't explore in the dark, that was for sure. This would take some concentration…

Choutzu brought a little ki out, struggling but maintaining his concentration so that no one would sense anything. A small orb of white blazed on the end of one finger, which was pointed upward as if he were about to deliver the word of god. The light wasn't all that bright, but it was enough to see by.

The room was a mass of rubble. Destroyed computers, destroyed rock, destroyed everything. It looked like someone had just gone through and ground everything up into pieces. Which, actually, was pretty well what had been done. What was left of the walls was charred black by ki blasts.

There was no clear sign of a door anywhere.

Not that a door would have survived the barrage of ki blasts the room had been subjected to. It could be buried anywhere in the rubble. There had to be a more efficient way of finding it that simply sifting through the crap by hand, but… who was to say that there was even a door to find? Wouldn't Krillin and Trunks have found it when they were here before? They had thoroughly searched while looking for the plans to Juunana-gou, and you would think that they would have investigated any strange door.

Choutzu slowly floated around the room, simply gazing over everything with his sharp eyes and psychic enhanced senses, looking for anything that might stick out as unusual among the rubble. Nothing on the floor, at least nothing visible. Only the smashed machines and pieces of rock from the decimated walls and ceiling. 

He scanned the walls slowly. Aside from the random patches of black, there was nothing. All was cracked, domed backward by the force that had filled the small room… but wait…

Along the very back wall, furthest from the hatch to the surface, was at last a different feature, something that stuck out from the rest of the room. It only stuck out if you knew what you were looking for, but Choutzu did. 

Over the entire room, the walls were bowed out from the force of ki filling the room, but along the back wall was a strip, about three and a half feet across, from floor to ceiling, that was bowed _out_. As if something…

"…burrowed upward…" Choutzu muttered to himself. Perhaps the door wouldn't be necessary after all.

__

Tien, are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Yeah, the tri-clops' voice echoed through his head. _It looks like something was digging a tunnel through the ground just on the other side of that wall. _

Should I go through?

…it's up to you. It could be dangerous.

Choutzu considered this for a second. He was here, he might as well.

__

Okay, I'm going.

The ki ball on the end of his finger vanished momentarily, plunging the room into instant dark. But that didn't last, as ki then began to glow around Choutzu's fist. He drew his small arm back, and punched the crumbling wall hard.

It gave way with ease, crumbling inward, pieces of rock falling down the long tunnel. When Choutzu pulled his fist back out, the entire surface crumbled and fell to pieces, a few falling into the room, most falling downward into the darkness. The ki surrounding Choutzu's hand re-focussed itself, moving back into a small ball on the end of one finger, outstretched again. He leaned his head into the now gaping hole in the wall, and looked down.

The small ball of energy didn't give enough light to see much. About five feet down, the darkness cut back in. but what he could see was just like the tunnel he had descended into the bunker in, only rougher, and fresher looking. No fine layer of dirt and grime covered the stone; it looked as if it had only been recently cut.

He floated forward until he was in the tunnel, and began to slowly go down, the ki on the end of his finger slowly lighting the way.

The tunnel was long, a lot longer than he thought it would be. He floated downward for a while, speeding up as he went until the wind was whistling past his ears. He had no idea how fast he was going, or how far down he was, when he felt the bottom of the tunnel on his feet.

He stopped instantly, so as not to burrow his own tunnel further down with the speed he had been traveling at, and looked forward. In the dim light of his energy, he could see the end of the wormhole, and the beginning of a room. Further than the light would reach very well, he thought he saw the gleam of metal in the dark. 

So there was another bunker out there. 

He walked forward, letting the ki ball get brighter as he went. He stepped out into the room, and the dark was chased away, the energy on the end of his finger now the size of a tennis ball. 

In the middle of the room, there was a huge computer console, monitors dark and covered in a layer of dust, but a slight humming noise letting him know that it was working. Every few seconds, it let out a short beep.

Near the hole he had just come out of, to the right when he turned to face it, was a large glass tube, a hose running into the wall and, presumably, to the surface, or at least the bunker above this one. On it was a printed label, reading: Experimental Virus Number 179. Choutzu didn't have to use to much thought to guess what the now empty container had held.

On the left side of the hole were two stasis tubes, the same kind that had held Juunana-gou and Juuhachi-gou. On one was printed the number 21. The other was open. Presumably, whatever had come out of the tube had made the tunnel.

Choutzu felt Tien's alarm as he saw this, and it was mirrored in his own. They had been right, and apparently, so had Korin. More androids, but at least there was only one more.

Choutzu shifted his gaze from the pod to the computer, then back again. The stasis tube seemed to draw his sight.

__

What now, Tien? He asked mentally. _I know I can't destroy the android by myself. But there must be something I can do._

Maybe… if you mess with the computer a little, you could cut off its life support…

No good. Androids don't need to eat or even breathe. I could sink it to the bottom of the ocean, and it wouldn't do any good.

Tien seemed to brood on that for a second. Then, 

__

Why don't you just destroy the computer, then? That might do some good.

Okay.

Choutzu turned back to the computer, and it let out another beep. He extended his hand, palm flat, facing the huge console. A ki blast formed it his hand, the one on the end of his finger melding into it as it grew. It got bigger and bigger, now the size of a basketball. 

He let it fly.

The ki tore through the circuitry and metal casing, ripping a huge hole through the computer like it was made of tinfoil, and exploded against the far wall with a roar, tearing even more of the machine to pieces. It wasn't that big of a blast, but even when it had done it's work, the computer was burning, the room not lit by a pale orange glow. 

A sound made him turn. The same sort of beeping the computer made, but frantic sounding, over and over. It was coming from the stasis pod, and a small panel over its head was flashing red.

There was a gust of steam, and the pod's door began to open.

Choutzu's heart clenched in fear. He could sense something in there. Not ki, but some living thing, something powerful. Dangerous.

The door was moving slowly, apparently too slowly for whatever was inside. It had opened perhaps a quarter of the way when it was blasted off from the inside, flying across the room faster than Choutzu's eyes could keep up with and embedding itself nearly a foot into the wall.

Choutzu's eyes had shot after the flying door of the pod, but now they flew back to it's occupant.

An android, of course. It was taller than average, maybe Piccolo's height. It was wearing loose fitting blue pants and a black gi top, a black belt holding it shut. It's hair was a mass of medium length gray spikes, swept back from it's face to stand out at odd angles in the back of it's head.

It's forehead was a plate of something clear, like glass, though it was undoubtedly stronger. Visible through it's blue tint was a human brain. So this thing had once been human. The blue tinted glass went all the way to just over it's closed eyes. it had no eyebrows.

Then he opened his eyes. when he did, he really became _he_, instead of it. He looked at Choutzu, and a smile spread over his lips, showing small very white teeth.

The former emperor had no chance to move or speak, or even prepare himself for an attack. The android was just too fast. He darted forward without appearing to even move, and he had him by the throat. He surged his ki as quickly as he could, a futile battle to get loose, but it was over too fast.

The smile stayed on, if anything widened, as android 21 reached up with his free hand and grabbed the emperor's leg, turned him to the side, and literally ripped Choutzu in half.

The various little arguments and conversations at Korin's tower suddenly stopped as Tienshinhan's ki flared dangerously. He leapt to his feet, veins standing out on his neck and arms, muscles clenched tight. All three eyes were wide open, a little bloodshot. He screamed.

"CHOUTZU!!!" 


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four:

"Choutzu!!!" 

The shout was audible all the way up on the lookout, faint but perfectly understandable. Choutzu was an expert at hiding his ki, but no one, not even the most adept psychic, could mask their own death as it happened, the horrible ripping sense as a larger than average ki was suddenly taken out of existence.

The surge of energy came as Tienshinhan's power rose in a torrent, and a white streak took off from Korin's tower and blasted across the horizon, faster than the other humans could hope to move, with the possible exception of Krillin, and out of sight almost as soon as it came into being.

Yajirobi stared after it, for the moment totally frozen in place with shock. Everything had just begun to calm down a little bit, and then he had suddenly sensed Choutzu's ki flare up, and then die. It took him a second to get his mind jumped again.

The kis of Piccolo, Krillin, and Yamucha all suddenly blazed forth as well, and three more streaks of ki blasted off from the tower, following Tien.

"Ah, crap." The samurai muttered under his breath. "Hey, Dende, could you contact Videl for me?"

The wide eyed guardian nodded. "I'll find her and tell her what's happened."

"Thanks." Yajirobi said, pushing his own aura to the surface and blasting off from the top of the lookout. He wasn't as fast as the others, but he could at least minimize their lead by flying higher in the sky where the air was thinner and offered less resistance.

He flew off, following the others to the coming battle.

Flying at top speed, it took Tien only a few minutes to reach Gero's old lab. The problem was, when he got there, there was no one waiting to fight him. And the android, of course, had no ki signature.

"Damn." 

He looked around, scanning the area below him, back and forth, not sure what to do. He could just blast the whole area clean, but that would be a useless expenditure of energy, and he couldn't afford that. If this one was as strong as the one that beat Yamucha, or even stronger, he was going to need every bit of power he had.

Not to mention the fact that Choutzu's body was down, under the ground somewhere. He wasn't just going to vaporize it along with the rubble. 

Tien grit his teeth in frustration. If only those androids had ki…! How was he supposed to find the thing if he couldn't even sense it?

"You coward!!" he screamed suddenly down at the ground. "You have the courage to kill someone weaker than you, but not to fight me? Show yourself!!"

As the last word left his mouth, there was a sudden displacement of air behind him. He began to turn, painfully aware, knowing he was too slow, and a hand closed over his mouth, legs wrapping around him from behind and pinning his arms to his sides with unbreakable strength.

Videl Satan stood in the center of a huge crowd. Her face was almost completely obscured by the dozens of microphones that were being thrust at her from every conceivable angle, not to mention the TV cameras that were far too close to her. Most of the crowd around her were civilians, but the ones closest were all reporters. Ever since she was a kid she'd always had to deal with them, being the daughter of 'earth's greatest hero', and instead of learning to get used to them, she seemed to get more and more agitated every time one of the obnoxious bastards stuck their mic in her face.

She had to deal with them this time, though. After Gohan's death, she had given up the old Great Saiyaman disguise, fighting crime as simply herself, like she used to. So it was up to her, the most publicly recognized of the remaining z warriors, to tell people what they needed to know. That a city had been vaporized, but the person responsible was dead. 

And all the while, while the journalists asked their questions, many at the same time, her trying to think up answers with just the right amount of truth mixed in with well-meant lies to keep the public from going into a panic, she was trying to sense everything that was going on with each of the other warriors.

It was maddening.

"Miss Satan, do you have any leads as to who may have been responsible?"

Videl sighed. She had answered this question, in many different forms, no less than a dozen times in the past half hour. "None as of yet, only that the person who actually destroyed the city had been destroyed." She was careful to censor her language. She would probably get quite a bit of backlash for saying something so blunt as 'killed' on television. 

The questions were fired at her with machine gun rapidity, and she did the best she could. But something suddenly flashed into her mind, a white hot flare that made cold fear run from her heart all through her body.

Death. There was no mistaking the sense of a living ki suddenly going out, violently, when someone was killed. Choutzu had just been violently murdered, and not very far away.

She shut out all the voices around her instantly, focusing her entire attention on ki. Tienshinhan's energy shot suddenly up to almost full power, and he began to move, rapidly, toward the spot where she had just sensed Choutzu die. A moment later, all the others powered up and took off in the same direction. Lastly, her sensei, Yajirobi, took off as well.

"Crap." She muttered. Her ki rose, aura forming around her and lifting her into the air. Heedless of the shouting coming from below, she blasted off.

Tien's ki was draining rapidly; much faster than the other android had drained Yamucha's. Almost as soon as he felt the hand close over his mouth, a horrible pulling jolted through his whole body, from the center of his stomach, radiating outward through his arms and legs, to the tips of his fingers and toes. It was horrible, like having his life forcefully ripped from his body.

If he wasn't so angry, just that horrible pulling might have knocked him out. He could _feel _the energy draining, far more rapidly than he had ever felt before. Even using the Kai-ko-ho didn't drain him this fast. Even with the surge of adrenaline moving through his blood, fatigue instantly made his arms heavy, his efforts to break free made futile in the space of a few seconds. 

It shocked him, but his mind was sinking into a fog, a few more seconds moving by and his vision becoming hazy and dim. It was astonishing, in a few seconds he had been reduced from a super powerful warrior, full of energy and in the prime of health, to something as tired and helpless as a child.

He tried to struggle, but the arms and legs held around him like iron. Dimly, as if from a great distance away, he heard a voice laughing.

"Struggle if you want to, but it's a waste of time. It's almost over now."

__

So this is it. The warrior thought to himself, acceptance of death coming quickly and frightfully easy. _I'm going to die right here, and most likely I can't be wished back. The earth's dragonballs won't work on me since I've been wished back with them before, and no one alive knows the instant transmission, so it would take months of dangerous travel to get to namek in a spaceship. _

Maybe it was better this way. Hell, he had died often enough before, hadn't he? Hadn't he already used up his chances at life? Really, he was living on borrowed time. 

He realized with sick horror that now he couldn't even feel his body, and even attempting to move was out of the question. His arms, which had been tensed with the effort to escape, were now hanging limply at his sides like they were made of wood. 

Another sound penetrated through the fog that had lowered over his sensory input. What was it? A low beeping, like a scouter. The androids from before, some of them had had machines much like scouters implanted in their eyes.

The thought had barely completed itself when there was a hard blow dealt to the back of the android's neck, causing it's hand to leave his mouth and it's arms and legs to unwrap themselves from around him. The kis of Krillin, Piccolo, and Yamucha registered themselves in his brain, along with others, but he wasn't sure who had saved him; that is, if he could still live after so much ki had been sucked from his body.

The imprisoning arms and legs no longer holding him, Tien's body fell down through the air, and when he hit the ground with a bone rattling thunk, he blacked out.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, the way it always did when he was in the middle of what was or was going to be a fierce battle. Krillin hit the back of the android's neck hard, the force enough to have killed any normal person a thousand times over. There was a convulsive movement as the former monk's elbow slammed into the skin, the gray spikes of android 21's hair seeming to jump up and stand on end for a second, his arms and legs spasming out. Krillin instantly noticed this, and made a mental note that apparently the back of the neck was something of a weak point for the android.

Tien's body fell to the ground, and Krillin let it go with a slight pang at letting a comrade just fall into the dirt. But there was no time to fly down and catch Tien, as he and the others now had to be on their guard every second. 

Piccolo dropped to Krillin's right side, defensive stance perfect, and Yamucha dropped down to the namek's other side. The three of them stood stock still while they studied the android, watching to see how it would react.

21 was composed again almost instantly, his arms and legs lowering to their normal positions as he turned. The android turned cold silver eyes on the three z warriors. 

Piccolo spoke first, his voice steady and strong sounding. It said in an undercurrent just below the words that the owner of this voice was someone not to be taken lightly. Piccolo was able to keep the tone in his voice, masking the fact that he was good and scared.

"You must know who we are, so I guess we can dispense with that part of the introduction." The namek warrior said balefully. "So why don't you tell us who _you _are, and why you're attacking our friends."

21 smiled. "Why should I tell you anything?"

"Because," Piccolo's face contracted in a snarl, "I like to know who I'm killing, and why."

Oddly, this seemed to satisfy android 21. He laughed, crossing his arms over his chest, silver eyes gleaming, the see-through forehead allowing a view of the human brain, making the whole figure surreal and strange. 

"Very well, I guess there's no harm in letting you know, since I'm going to kill you anyway."

"I am the greatest work of the genius Dr. Gero-sama. Android 22 and myself were designed as the ultimate killing machines to destroy Son Goku and his allies. But our construction proved to be incredibly difficult, and time consuming, due to the high amount of power we were to possess. The Doctor therefore decided that we should be turned over to the computer, so that someday, if his other plans failed, we would come to wreak havoc on the earth."

"With us and various other projects now taken over by the master computer, Gero-sama turned his attention to a more short term project. The creation of the earlier, less efficient androids seventeen and eighteen, and the remodeling of android nineteen. He also programmed a separate computer to grow the creature named Cell."

"So I can see that the computer finished it's work. Did it create the virus that killed Goku and the other saiyajin as well?"

21 smirked. "Yes."

Halfway through the word, Piccolo swung his arm as hard and fast as he could, catching the android in it's left eye-socket, sending it hurtling to the ground where it struck and spread several deep cracks in the ground around it, throwing up a cloud of dust.

He made a quick motion with his hand, telling the others to hang back, and flew down, ready to follow up with another attack. Charging through the smoke, he laded with one leg on either side of the android. It was lying where it had fallen, it's eyes closed, a small trickle of mixed blood and oil running from the corner of it's mouth.

__

Almost too easy. Piccolo thought to himself, extending his arm, palm down, to get rid of this android as he had the last.

But before he could deliver the blast, 21 came suddenly to life. Faster than Piccolo's eyes could see, he swung his arm up so his palm was facing Piccolo's head, but in an instant the hand was gone, a quick series of clicks and it was replaced with the barrel of a blast cannon, it's dark muzzle like an eye socket.

Piccolo saw the malicious grin on the android's face, and had time for a very brief second of regret and recognition of his own stupid carelessness, and then a huge explosion of power blazed out of the cannon, vaporizing him from the waist up. 

Author's Note: This fic is going to be one, _possibly_ two more chapters long, plus an epilogue. I know how it's going to work out, but you'll all have to wait for me to write it down. Oh, and for anyone who wants to know my response to Cell and 21, just read in my bio, since I'm too lazy to re-type it here. 

The Rev. 


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five:

Videl landed on Korin's tower hard, her feet hitting the tiles with enough force to crack some of them, sending small marble splinters flying into the air. The cat/god was next to her in a flat second.

He was holding a bag of senzu beans up to her in one paw, a sarcastic smile pasted across his face despite the battle going on at this very second. Who knew? Korin might already know what was going to happen.

Videl looked at the bag for a minute before taking it. The senzu were what she had come for in the first place, but it was slightly startling that Korin had known already. 

He smirked a bit wider. "They forgot to take these. Guess they were in a bit of a rush."

Videl stood still for another second, then reached out and took the small pouch. No sooner than her hand closed around it, then a huge explosion detonated on the horizon, and Piccolo's ki went out like a candle in a high gale.

"Shit!" she cursed, and blasted off instantly, not bothering to thank Korin for the beans but knowing that he probably didn't care, under the circumstances.

Krillin and Yamucha looked on in horror. There seemed to be no other response possible as they watched the lower half of Piccolo's body, smoke pouring from the bloody stump of the namek's waist, fall slowly to its knees and then flat, the end of the android's arm a smoking eye, the barrel of the energy cannon.

21, eyes completely blank and mouth in an expressionless line, rose up to his feet quickly, hand that was still a hand brushing his silver hair away from the glass window into his head. He raised the cannon and blew the smoke away from the muzzle.

"He…!" Krillin stared down at the scene of brutality, shaking. "He just vaporized Piccolo!" 

Yamucha said nothing. He probably couldn't have if he tried. 

The android shifted his gaze up to them. His face was still covered, but his eyes looked like he was smiling. "Ready for round two?" he asked.

Obviously 21 expected no response, and gave them no time to give one. In less time than it took to blink, he left the ground and buried his knee in Krillin's stomach.

The former monk screamed, the crunch of broken bones echoing through his head and pain flaring all through his body, radiating from his ribs as they cracked under the android's blow. The pain threatened to overtake his consciousness, but he fought it off with the same determination that had enabled his to kick Frieza in the face with a horn through his chest. 

"Yamucha…!" he croaked out, pushing himself away from the android's leg, causing him almost more pain than it was worth. As soon as he was back, Yamucha attacked. 

Of course it was an uneven battle to begin with. The android had killed Piccolo, rather effortlessly. That practically guaranteed that by themselves none of the others would stand for long. 

The human caught 21 off guard, Krillin having been out of his grip for only a second, and kicked him in the face, hard. While the backlash from the blow had him in check, Yamucha spun around and a knife hand connected solidly with the android's neck.

Yamucha leapt backwards, throwing his guard up and watching 21 for an attack. The android's neck was canted at an unnatural angle, appeared to be broken. But as Yamucha watched, it slowly unbent itself, bringing the android's head, still showing that hateful smirk in its eyes and predator's grin, back to its proper position.

He growled in the back of his throat, frustrated. He hadn't expected to hurt it too badly, but he had expected _some _effect. Right now it looked like he hadn't even touched the thing, and he had put all of his energy behind those blows. This was bad…

"Kamehameha!!"

The shout came across the air, and just a second later, a wave of blue light exploded behind 21, plowed into him. Krillin floated in the air, steam coming from his palms, behind it.

Yamucha didn't wait for 21 to recover. While he was still reeling forward, Yamucha attacked.

"Wolf Fang Fist!" he yelled, energy surrounding him in a blinding white fury, his blows speeded up and powered up far beyond normal. Blow after blow he slammed into the robot's face, abdomen, and every other space of his body.

..only to be slapped down like a child by a blow that felt like it should have shattered his jaw. It caught him across the mouth, faster than he could see, and sent him careening down to the ground, hitting the rock hard and burying himself in rubble yet again.

21 rotated and moved in a bur, and Krillin threw his arms up in an X instinctively, and a fist hit them, the impact vibrating through his entire body, pain flaring. But, he had felt worse, so he kept his head.

The pressure on his arms vanished instantly, even though the pain didn't. As soon as that happened, he let his aura vanish, dropping instantly down. Just in time, as another punch whizzed less than an inch over his head. He reached up as fast as he could manage, hoping it was fast _enough_, and grabbed for the android's arm.

He felt his finger close over 21's arm, and his aura flared back instantly, power pushing to it's maximum, and swung the android over his shoulder, throwing him straight down. 

Yamucha wasn't hurt, really. After all the times he had been buried in rubble, that wasn't all that surprising. He shoved a large boulder off and stood up, his legs a bit shaky and a little dizzy, but mostly fine. He was more worried about Krillin right now, and even more worried than that about Tienshinhan. 

He looked up to see android 21 flying straight down at him. That cut off any worries, for the moment. 

He leapt out of the way at the last second, and lanced a leg out after he did so, hoping to catch the android with a kick before it hit the ground. 

Instead it caught his foot, stopping effortlessly in an instant, and swung him around, planting him face-first in the ground. The pain didn't really matter, it was small. But the shock did. This thing was so goddamn fast!

He rolled over, and just managed to move his head before a mechanical fist buried itself in the rock where it had rested a second before. Yamucha reacted instantly, kicking up hard with both legs and hitting the android in the stomach. 21's eyes went wide with momentary surprise before it was thrown upward by the force. 

Krillin came down from behind it and hit it hard in the middle of the back, so hard that bolts of ki flared from around the point of impact. 

Yamucha leapt up, and spun quickly, kicking the android hard when it flew back down at him, sending it flying to the side and down, where it slammed into the ground and was buried.

Krillin floated down next to his comrade, both of them breathing heavily. 

"Do you think we killed it?" he asked between gasps for air.

Yamucha shook his head. "I don't think so. There's no way it would die that easy."

Krillin opened his mouth as if he were going to reply, but then he closed it again, and his eyes focussed on something on the horizon. Yamucha turned to look as well.

Two silver dots of ki, moving fast. No more than five seconds had passed when Yajirobi pulled abruptly to a halt in front of them, and Videl close behind, both with drawn swords.

"What happened? Where's Tien? Piccolo's dead, isn't he?" the two martial artists began to ask, at once. 

"It's not 'what happened'," Yamucha said dryly. "It's still happening."

The words had only just left his mouth when an explosion suddenly rocked everything; the power behind it seemed to shake the very air, and it threw them all completely off, and a glowing orb of power on the ground made the sky look dark. 

Android 21 shot out of the chaos in a blur. Yamucha realized at the last second, as he saw the android's malicious grin like a shark's, close enough to touch, that he was most likely dead. 

He hadn't counted on a samurai.

Yajirobi, fresher than Krillin or Yamucha and faster than Videl, was the only one to react quickly enough. He leapt forward, past the others and at 21. He flipped his weapon in his hand, the blade now pointing down out of a closed fist.

He had a brief glimpse of surprise on the android's face before he plunged his katana directly into it's right eye.

The blade penetrated easily, and exited through the back of the head with a spray of blood. 21 let out a cry of surprise and pain, a totally unguarded sound that was completely unlike the voice he had used when talking to Piccolo. Blood poured from the eye and the exit wound in the back of the head, Yajirobi's sword still stuck through it like a toothpick through some sort of finger food.

Krillin was next to regain his composure, leaping in front of Yajirobi as 21 began to claw wildly at the sword in its eye. He held his hand out at his side, energy gathering and a disk of energy forming his signature attack in an instant.

"Kienzen!" he yelled, and let the disk fly. It traveled perfectly, hitting 21 in the neck, and shearing off the android's head and hand that wasn't an energy cannon like a hot knife cutting into butter. A strange liquid that could have either been very dark blood or reddish oil sprayed out, the disk vaporizing itself after it finished cutting, its job complete.

Android 21 let out one loud yell, and then the body and the head lost all power of flight, falling from the air and to the ground.

For about thirty seconds, no one moved or spoke. Finally, Videl broke the silence.

"..is… is that thing dead?" she asked, her voice only a bit shaky.

"I'm not sure." Yamucha answered. "But it sure _looked _like it."

Another few seconds passed in silence.

"We have to go see." Krillin said. "We can't just sit up here and wait."

So they all floated slowly downward, and landed next to the bloody mess Android 21 had become.

The body lay in a puddle of mixed blood and oil, the severed head, with Yajirobi's sword still through it, lay a couple of feet away. To all appearances, it was one dead android.

"We did it, guys!" Krillin said, breaking into a huge smile. "We won!"

Yamucha smiled. "Yeah, it looks like we did."

Yajirobi, also grinning, took a few steps forward. The grin vanished momentarily, as he put his foot against the android's head and took hold of the katana's grip. He turned his head with a slight grimace, and pulled the blade out of the wound. He then wiped the bloody steel on the android's pants, and sheathed it.

"Well, that's that." The samurai said. "Let's go find Tien and give him a senzu." He looked at Videl. "You _do _have them, right?"

She smiled. "Yeah."

They turned, but before the four warriors could walk away, a sound came from the body on the ground. 

All four spun back around.

Wires were protruding from the android's neck and wrist, and from the end of the severed head and hand. Long wires, lashing back and forth in the air like snakes, attaching to each other. They began to pull the body back together.

It was at this moment hat Tien regained a sluggish sort of consciousness. His vision was foggy, and he was only half aware of where he was, but he was awake. His body felt as if it had been beaten with a huge hammer, and he was more tired than he could ever remember being in his life. The specifics of his situation were still blurry in his mind, but he knew he was hurt, probably badly, and that he needed a senzu. 

He was also aware of the fact that Yajirobi, Videl, Krillin, and Yamucha were nearby. Their kis felt as if they had been fighting a battle, but he could sense no enemy. Did that mean they had won? His thoughts began to fade away again…

Then a ki, Videl's, suddenly landed right next to him.

"You're lucky I saw you, Tienshinhan-san." She said politely, though in a great hurry. "Here, eat this."

Tien felt the best thing in the world, his only saving grace at the moment, a senzu, press against his lips. He forced his mouth to open and accept the bean, and then forced it upon the even more difficult task of chewing. 

The second the bean was down his throat, the miraculous healing took place as always. His injuries vanished in a matter of seconds, and as they left his memory returned in a flash, down to every exact detail.

__

Choutzu is dead.

The thought burst upon his brain like a bomb, and he sat bolt upright, eyes wide, panting for breath.

Above them, Yamucha was fighting with the android, who appeared to be slightly slower and had an ugly mark around it's neck, at a furious pace. He was mostly dodging, landing only a few blows and trying to keep out of the machine's way. As Tien watched, Krillin landed next to him. 

"Hey." The former monk said, a smile somehow on his face even now. "How ya feeling, Tien?"

The tri-clops grimaced. "I've been better."

Krillin nodded. "I expected that. So, any ideas?"

Tienshinhan looked up at the android, who was beginning to slowly but surely catch up with Yamucha, landing more blows.

__

Is it worth it? The question surfaced in his mind, before the thought this question was in reference to was even fully formed. Krillin had asked if he had any ideas. Well, he did. But… 

__

There's no way any of us are strong enough to beat this thing in combat. He thought gravely. _We could gang up on him and fight until we're all dead, it won't accomplish anything. _

But…

No buts. I can't turn away from this.

Tien didn't look away from the fight. "I can kill it." He said.

"What!?" Krillin's eyes widened, smile replaced by a look of pure disbelief. :What did you just say?"

"I can kill it." Tien said. He closed his eyes. "But… I'll need some time. To prepare."

Krillin looked at him, disbelief replaced by something else. Something like respect. As if he knew what Tien was going to do. But he couldn't.

"How much time?" he asked seriously.

Tien thought. "Two minutes. Maybe three."

Krillin nodded. "Alright. We'll keep him busy."

Krillin blasted off in a flare of power. Videl waited a second longer, looking at the tri-clops with concern. The look in his eyes…

Then she blasted off as well, leaving Tien alone.

He watched the two join the fight, 21 roaring in rage, stepping it up, moving faster and hitting harder.

__

It's now or never.

He slowly floated upward, not moving fast enough to attract attention. He formed his hands into a triangle in front of his eyes.

Then he changed slightly, the two middle fingers of each hand folding inward, so that he was looking through a smaller hole, a triangle that for some reason put a gun sight into mind.

He began to focus his ki.

Yamucha saw that the android had been slowed down at least some, either that or it was still not back up to 100% after having its head lobbed off and a sword stuck through it's eye. Either way, it was still too damn fast.

At first he had held his own, none of the android's blows even landing, the few he cautiously threw hitting hard and right where they were supposed to.

But then the android had begun to get faster. It was slowly gaining the upper hand.

Yajirobi floated nearby. He was waiting for some sort of opening, but none was coming. The android just moved so fast…

Krillin and Videl charged upward into the fight, and 21 seemed to sense them coming before they got there. His face twisted into a growl, and he suddenly moved very fast indeed, and belted Yamucha solidly across the face, knocking him backward through the air.

Krillin and Videl charged into the fight. 21 was waiting for them, smiling now again like a shark, death in his eyes.

Tienshinhan had been an assassin all his life. His earliest memory was of his own parents being savagely murdered. Over the years, he had seen a whole lot of death. Much of it had been dealt by him.

It had been his job, for years, to kill people. His dream had been to be the best in the world at it. 

So he had come to accept the idea of his own death long ago. To not do so would have meant madness. He knew that eventually, he would be gone from the earth for good. No being wished back, no reincarnation. Gone, a ghost forever. The idea had long ago been introduced to his brain, and he had come to accept it.

So why did he feel afraid?

He focussed his ki, concentrating on the task of putting his life force into the attack, enough to do the job, but not too much, or it would kill him where he stood.

This was going to kill him. He knew that; there was no way around it. When he had invented this attack, he knew it would be lethal. But there was no other way. Always, it seemed, people clung to false hopes until they were doomed. He wouldn't, _couldn't_, do that. This was the only way to win, and he was going to take it before it was too late.

If saving his comrades and the planet meant his own demise, so be it.

His muscles were beginning to ache. It was coming down to it now, as his life began to drain, forced by his will into the power of his attack. 

It was time. Time to turn it up to the highest notch.

He braced himself.

"Kaio-ken!"

Krillin had just taken a blast full in the face from the energy cannon on 21's arm, and he was struggling to remain awake. They were taking a beating, and that was an understatement.

Videl hung back, sword held in her left hand. The right arm hung at her side, broken and useless. Yamucha was moving faster and hitting harder than he had thought was possible. But it wasn't enough.

21 finally caught him. Wicked grin blazing, he dealt the desert bandit a blow across the top of his skull, hard. Hard enough that Yamucha's head actually dented in on the side, the skull cracking.

"Yamucha!!" Videl screamed. 

Yajirobi dived forward, his sword swinging. 21 turned as gracefully as a dancer and hit him with a fist to the face, the brittle crunch of breaking bone as the samurai's nose and cheekbone crushed.

__

We can't keep this up. Krillin thought to himself.

And, almost as if in answer, a shout came from above.

"Kaio-ken!!"

no one had to be told what that meant. They scattered, the three who were still up. Yamucha was on the ground, and they would just have to hope he was out of the line of fire, because there was no time to get him.

21 began to turn. He would not finish his rotation.

Everything took on a soft, beautiful glow. The red energy of the Kaio-ken threatened to rip his body apart, the life energy all focussed into one point and unable to counteract the power of the god's technique. But Tien held together, somehow.

__

This is for my friends, and especially Choutzu, you bastard. He thought. A smile crossed his features.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. 21 was beginning to turn, but his face was not yet even visible.

Tien turned his hands to the aide. Now his palms faced downward, toward the android. His index fingers and thumbs touched at the tips, and the last finger of each hand stuck outward. Ki crackled in the triangle between his hands.

"Take this!" he screamed. His third eye suddenly lit up in gold, showing through the blood red of his aura. 21's eyes widened in surprise or fear, but Tien couldn't see the android's face.

"SOUL CANNON!" 

A beam of gold, white and red. It left the third eye in the middle of Tien's forehead, and passed through the triangle of his hands. It grew, spiraling down, into a raging tornado of ki. It was beautiful in a savage, destructive way. Tien's life drained form his body into the blast, multiplying it a thousand times over. 

The beam connected solidly with android 21's back, and the world was eclipsed in savage white light.


	6. Epilogue

Epilogue: 

Yamucha struggled slowly out of the fog. It clouded his brain with pain, and he sensed that he had been out for hours, maybe days. But the pain he felt now was lessening, and rapidly. His head was clearing.

He opened his eyes.

Bulma was leaning over him, her eyes wide with distress, hair blown in wild directions by the wind that was whipping over the landscape. In her hand was a small leather bag, and Yamucha had seen those enough times to know what it contained; a senzu bean, and she had just given him one. 

The pain was gone, except for stiffness and the most complete lack of energy Yamucha had ever felt in his life. How badly, he wondered, had he been hurt to begin with if the senzu beans still left him feeling like crap?

"Bulma." He said. "How did you get here?" he sat up, leaning on one elbow first and then gradually leaning upright.

She cocked one eyebrow. "Hello, I'm a genius, remember? I have a capsule plane with me at all times."

He grinned. Then abruptly the grin vanished. "android 21!" he said abruptly. "Is it dead?"

"Android 21?" Bulma looked puzzled. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about. I gave you a senzu bean the second I got here; I haven't seen a thing."

Yamucha struggled to his feet. The area around them was a giant crater, so big that he could only barely make out the edge on the horizon. There was no doubt about it; that blast hadn't just been huge, it had been apocalyptic. Probably even Tien hadn't known it would be that big. And who could blame him? It wasn't the sort of attack you could _practice _for.

He looked at Bulma. "Where are the others?"

She rolled her eyes. "I told you, I saw you first thing and gave you a bean. I haven't seen anything else."

Yamucha began to walk, looking for anything that stood out of the general rubble around him. Everything was so destroyed, however, that it was most likely that his friends were buried.

Suddenly something caught his eye. A change in color; amidst the dirty grays and browns of the torn up earth, a gleam of silver, far off to the right.

He floated off the ground, oblivious for the moment to Bulma's yelled protests from below. As he got closer, he saw what it was, and his breath caught in his throat.

He landed next to it. 

It was cast in a rock that was obviously just that; rock. But it was the purest silver color imaginable. A statue, so perfect it could have been made by the finest sculptor ever to be born.

It was Tien.

He stood in the stance he had died in, when the last of the energy, even the powerful, most potent life force that kept his heart beating and his cells living, had left his body. His legs braced slightly apart, muscles clenched, hands in position in front of his face.

But it was his face that was the most startling. It was clenched in pain, as much pain as there must be when one forces oneself to die. But the mouth was different.

The mouth was smiling.

The End. 


End file.
